Carriers that grip the upper portions of articles to enable the articles to be readily lifted and carried are well known. Their use in carrying beverage containers is particularly familiar, especially in connection with beverage cans. For example, plastic carriers which contain openings that fit over the tops of beverage cans so as to grip the cans in the reduced neck area just below the can chimes are often employed. Although economical to produce, such carriers have certain drawbacks. The thin plastic material at the finger holes can be painful to the user's fingers when the package is carried for any length of time. Further, the thin material required to enable the carrier to be forced over the tops of the cans limits the weight of the package. For these reasons plastic carriers are normally not used to carry more than six 12-ounce cans in a package. In addition, the use of such carriers provides no space for printed advertising material or other indicia. Further, discarded plastic carriers have been seen as creating environmental problems.
Paperboard carriers have been designed for carrying beverage containers in similar fashion, that is, by gripping the top portions of containers so that the suspended containers beneath that point are unenclosed. One such carrier design consists of a top panel spaced from a bottom panel by short side panels, with the tops of the beverage containers located in the space between the top and bottom panels. The containers are introduced to the carrier through apertures in the bottom panel and typically are held in place by support tabs which extend up from the bottom panel and engage the underside of the chimes or other form of outwardly extending lip on the container. Finger openings in the top panel, softened by flaps that shield the fingers from paperboard edges, enable the carrier to be lifted and carried without discomfort.
Paperboard carriers of this type are not only more comfortable to use, they are quite strong, are inexpensive to manufacture and are environmentally acceptable. Further, the substantially unbroken expanse of the top panel provides ample space for printed indicia. Certain designs, however, make it difficult to engage the container rim with support tabs throughout the circumference of the container. For example, it is desirable to provide glue flaps which extend up from the bottom panel and overlie a portion of the container tops, placing them in position to be glued to the top panel. Such glue flaps supplement the usual overlapping type of glue flap that runs along the edge portions of the carrier. Because space limitations require the supplemental glue flaps to be foldably connected to the bottom panel adjacent the aperture through which the containers extend, the flaps take up a significant circumferential portion of each aperture, so that there is no room for a support tab in that location. The lack of support for the container in this area is a potential weak spot in the carrier which should be eliminated. Until now, it was not known how to correct this problem in an economic manner without introducing still other problems.